Newspaper tirades did begin again. The previous attacks on the Pope almost were forgotten, (horribly pungently palate-tickling though they were,) at a time when men’s minds were filled with wars and rumours of wars. But the Fleet Street fishers, who knew their business, were aware that the public appetite is capricious and must be tempted with a variety of bait. Even wars and rumours of wars are apt to pall. One must not cry “Wolf” too often. Tired of Black-gnats, trout must be tried with May-flies: for newspapers must be sold, or the soap-and-cocoa people will quake; and newspapers will not sell unless their news are new. So, when the editor of the Daily Anagraph received a couple of letters from Jerry Sant and Mrs. Crowe, proffering certain tasty information, and asking for an offer for same, he consulted his proprietors. The subject certainly was not entirely novel: but what had gone before merely had been so to speak an appetizer. This was the strong meat, the pièce de résistance in the banquet of garbage. Sant was in possession of exclusive information. The publication of it would mean a boom for the paper. Editors cannot afford to be curious about the morals of their contributors, or indeed of anything bar the quality of their contributions. Neither proprietors nor editor were actuated by any sort of malice, personal or professional, in defaming the Pope. Their motive was merely commercial. Therefore, they offered £4,000 a-piece to Sant and his accomplice; and they invested a similar sum in amateur investigations. At intervals during the next few weeks, the Daily Anagraph published articles reflecting on the character of God’s Vicegerent; and two columns daily were set apart for anonymous ex-parte statements concerning His career. Oh, it all began again! The points insisted on were that He was, and never had been anything but, a lazy luxurious (the second intention was “debauched”) Jesuitical machiavellian and false-pretentious ignoramus.—Oh it all indubitably began again. Mediocrities, entrusted with power over their fellow-creatures, invariably develop into tyrants. All history proves it: the tyranny of the clergy was bad enough: but it was as nothing in comparison with the sordid tyranny of the Press which we now complacently tolerate.
Calumny culminated with a concoction of the calvous Crowe’s. It was admitted that the high-water mark was reached. Hitherto, the very virulence of the assaults had engendered a certain amount of unexpressed sympathy among stock-brokers, naval, Varsity, and other thoughtful men. “Our Representative” had called at Archbishop’s House, had interviewed Monsignor this and Monsignor Canon that, inviting the candid expression of opinion on the subject of Pontifical Infallibility, as viewed in the light of recent journalistic enterprize and research. The distinction between infallibility and impeccability had been impressed upon “Our Representative”: but that was all. No defence was offered either by the Pope or by His poor benighted papists. Then, by slow degrees, the elect, the intelligent, began to persuade themselves that, after all, the early misdemeanours of George Arthur Rose, if they were as stated, were altogether apart from the pontifical acts of Hadrian the Seventh. The latter distinctly were admired throughout the world: the former—well, they were a pity. So, public opinion was. And then came Mrs. Crowe. She had a song to sing (oh!) of secret debauchery on the part of Hadrian the Seventh. She was concise in the matter of names and dates and places. She alleged that, at dusk on a certain evening in September, the 29th, she herself had seen the Pope, disguised in black like an ordinary priest, taking tea—He Who never ate in public—with two nameless women (far too beautiful to be respectable in her opinion) in a house on Via Morino. She was in the street. His so-called Holiness and His female companions were by the lighted window. Presently the blinds were closed; and she knew not what went on behind them. She watched the house for an hour and a half; and then the Pope came out muffling His face, (a thing He never at any other time had been known to do, but necessary on this occasion to complete His disguise). He walked away; and she followed Him: saw Him stop at the Attendolo Palace, and (finally) enter the Vatican saluted by the guards at the bronze gates. She related the incident with such particularity and in such a manner, that a great many people fancied that they thoroughly understood. In a sort of way the good lady did more than most people have done towards effecting the Reunion of Christendom: for The Cliff deliriously discursed (from Revelations) of a great red dragon and seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads, and of a beast rising out of the sea and seven heads and ten horns and ten crowns on his horns; and The Catholic Hour simultaneously washed its hands in innocency advertizing unctuous rectitude in a leading article entitled “The Third Borgia.”
CHAPTER XX
While the dwarves were diverting themselves as aforesaid, their rulers were in council together. And one day Sir Francis Bertram found no closed doors at the Vatican. He was granted an audience which was friendly and unofficial and secret: so secret in fact that no news of it “transpired.” It was treated as the return visit of an Englishman to an Englishman. He came in an electric brougham, quite unattended. No one noted that he brought a small dispatch-box with him: or that he did not carry it away with him: but some of the senior cardinals, who kindly came to discuss the latest effusions of the Daily Anagraph with Hadrian in the evening, found His Holiness brimful of gaiety. They remarked that the visit of the ambassador had done Him no end of good. His bearing was vivid, serene, and youthful: His conversation was witty, limpid, facile: no one would have taken Him for the person described in the newspapers. He read those which obligingly were handed to him: but shewed no emotion whatever, although very eager expert eyes searched for some trace from which to lead theories and hypotheses. Nor did He utter any comment. He read: He laid down the paper; and resumed the conversation. Before Their Eminencies withdrew, He summoned the Sacred Consistory to meet at noon on the morrow; and that was the only noteworthy event of the evening.
Hadrian mounted the throne; and the vermilion college displayed itself before Him. A pigskin kitbag, which a gentleman-of-the-secret-chamber had placed by the pontifical footstool before the doors were locked, did not escape the notice of the more observant. The Pontiff Himself was in singularly good form: and this was incomprehensible, for He carried in His hand a copy of the very newspaper which everyone had read and retched-over. That He should be so aggressively cheerful, so vividly dominant, with that in His hand, was considered hardly decorous. Even among those who firmly were determined to force themselves to believe in Him, that He should not bend His neck to the smiter now, did not tally at all with conceptions of propriety. With these sentiments, Their Eminencies composed themselves to listen.
After the formal opening of the session, a Consistorial Advocate (in garments of a violet colour and furred with ermine about the neck) was commanded to read aloud, from the Daily Anagraph, the account of the Pope’s visit in disguise to the house on Via Morino. He was to read it, first, in English, then, in Latin. It was not a long lection: for journalistic instinct had perceived that the facts stated would be more damnatory in their nakedness. With that inscrutable incomprehensible vivid gleam of hilarity irradiating His face, Hadrian checked the Consistorial Advocate from time to time, preventing him from drifting into the monotonous gabble, which is used for the formal reading of documents whose contents already are known informally; and, if His object was to cause each deadly detail of the charge against Himself to come out clearly, with all the contours definite and all the tints brilliantly varnished, it must be admitted that His method was pontifically successful.
“Ebbene dunque?” muttered Cardinal Ragna.
Hadrian darted a word at the Cardinal-Prefect-of-Propaganda: “Will Your Eminency have the goodness to describe, to the Sacred College, your acts of the afternoon and evening of the festival of St. Michael Archangel?”
The naming of the festival of Michaelmas was like a touch on the latch of the Red Pope’s memory. His pure and gentle face lighted up: for he perceived the connotation; and that inspired him with a joy so delectable that he paused to pick his words, tasting them deliberately, lingering over them. “After siesta on the festival of St.
Michael Archangel,—and that would be about 15½ hours of the clock, not later,—I came to Vatican and was received by Your Holiness. I was admitted to the secret chamber. I sat opposite to Your Holiness, by the window. I remember that, for a reason. I spoke to Your Holiness on the subject of removing England from the control of Propaganda. I said that I had pondered Your Holiness’s proposition. I said that it appeared to me, as it already had appeared to Your Holiness, that the necessity for treating England as a barbarous uncivilized savage country, in which the Faith is preached by missionaries, no longer existed. I added my own opinion, that to continue to treat England as a savage uncivilized barbarous country, now, amounted to perennial insult. I received Your Holiness’s thanks. I am giving only the heads of this conversation, which was prolonged until the seventeenth hour. Then, the pontifical pages brought in a tray containing fruit and triscuits and some English tea. I told Your Holiness that tea astringed my nerves, remarking on the difference between English nerves and Italian. I was permitted to make a few jokes. In the midst of these very diverting burlesques, I ate a little fruit—perhaps a fig and a half—and I drank a little wine of Cinthyanum. Afterwards, I proceeded to discuss another case with Your Holiness. That case was the removal, from the spiritual rule of Propaganda, of the other countries which are under the secular rule of the Excellent King of England. It was a complication; and the discussion of it occupied some hours. I said, in sum, that sufficient information as to the nature and character and national history of the natives of those countries, especially Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, officially had not been laid before me. I requested Your Holiness to afford me longer time for the collection of information and investigation of the subject. I permitted myself to note that, while we were talking, Your Holiness made and smoked nineteen cigarettes. I remember that, when at length I rose to pay my respects, Your Holiness drew me nearer to the window by which we had been sitting; and deigned to indicate the image of St. Michael Archangel which poises itself on the summit of the Mola. The metal of which the said image is formed appeared to be burnished, owing to radiance from the lights of the City. I said that it resembled an angelic apparition in the obscure sky of night. I remember that Your Holiness said ‘May the Prince, of the angels who do service in heaven, succour and defend us on earth.’ I responded ‘Amen.’ Your Holiness added some words in the Greek tongue, which You deigned to explain as signifying ‘O god of the golden helm, look upon, look upon the City which thou once didst hold well-beloved.’ To that prayer, I also responded ‘Amen.’ And I was permitted to retire at the same moment when the pages were bringing in Your Holiness’s supper, which was at 20½ hours of the clock.”
Cardinal Gentilotto sat down; and the eyes of the Sacred College twinkled like talc. The Pope, Who had receded to His more usual distant reticent gravity, gave them a silent moment for appreciation; and then darted a verisimilar word to Cardinal della Volta. “Will Your Eminency have the goodness to describe, to the Sacred College, your acts of the afternoon and evening of the festival of St. Michael Archangel.”
The ex-major-domo of the apostolic palace hemmed;—and prayed for permission to send for his diary. Then he bravely proceeded. “M-ym-ym-ym: Twenty-ninth September. At 15 o’clock, I drove by the Fort of Monte Mario to the Milvian Bridge: and walked a little in the fields. The sky was cloudy. Afterwards I drove by Via Flaminia and Pincio to Countess Demochede’s villino; and sent away my carriage. I obtained news of the German Emperor. Her Excellency’s daughter the Princess Neri was there. Tea and very agreeable conversation. The Princess expatiated on the virtues of pedestrianism. She and her beautiful mother derided me when I said that I was about to walk to Vatican. I went to Palazzo Attendolo to inquire for Don Umberto. He had bought a new horse, a strawberry-roan, and was gone to Cinthyanum to try him. That young man always is buying horses—m-ym-ym. Returned to Vatican at 19 o’clock. Said Mattins and Lauds. Wrote to—m-ym-ym,—wrote four letters, Holiness. Supper, capretto ai ferri and zuppa inglese. Gave my news of the German Emperor to our Most Holy Lord. Read Chap. IX., i, of Matthew Arnold’s Literature and Dogma with Δ. Semphill. Conversed with that deacon about it till bed-time. He says that it is not a book to fear. In my opinion it is a wonderful book but shocking, and likely to cause misunderstanding except among the English: but it is not damnable, though many will think so. Sancte Francisce, ora pro me.”
He was about to sit-down; and the College was about to open twenty-three mouths: but Hadrian with the left hand signed him to approach the throne, and with the right simultaneously beckoned a master-of-ceremonies in a red habit and a violet cloak.
Cardinal Berstein interpolated with a recondite sneer, “The phenomenon of bi-location, as exemplified in the case of St. Philip Neri, is well-known. But this is not the case of a saint.”
Hadrian wiped the floor with the sneerer. “Nor was the case of Samian Pythagoras, divine, golden-thighed, (if Your Eminency ever heard of him), the case of a saint. Yet, inasmuch as Pythagoras was heard to lecture at Metapontion and Tayromenion on the same day and at the same hour, he would appear to have been an exemplification of the phenomenon of bi-location. However, this is neither the case of a saint, as you so acutely have observed: nor a case of bi-location, as you so hilariously would pretend.” He flung the retort at the cardinal with such force that Berstein sought his seat with not innocuous concussion.
“Lord Cardinals, the voice of the snake and the voice of the goose are one and the same. They both hiss:” the Pope added before moving again.
A feeling that His Holiness was dynamic, picric, dangerous, pervaded the assembly. Each most eminent lord wondered who would be the next victim of that quiet shrill velvet claw which tore the brain. The Pontiff bent His head to the master-of-ceremonies, signifying that he should remove the mitre. Also He unclasped the morse of His cope; and addressed Cardinal della Volta.
“Can Your Eminency remember what habit you wore during the afternoon and evening of the twenty-ninth of September?”
“Yes, Holy Father, I wore the plain habit which we commonly wear.”
“Like this?” Hadrian stooped and opened the kit-bag; and drew from it a black cassock with red buttons, a red sash, and a black cloth cloak, and a black three-cornered beaver-hat with thin red cord and tassels.
“But yes: precisely like that.”
“Would Your Eminency do Us the extreme favour of putting on these garments now?”
Della Volta smiled: but he made the change, and stood on the throne-steps pulling out the folds, stretching his arms in the new sleeves. The Pope took another and a similar suit from the kit-bag; and changed His Own white for black. Then He descended to the cardinal’s side; and faced the college. They were as like each other as two blots of ink. And the college roared. Of course, everyone instantly remembered Courtleigh’s allegation that della Volta was the Pope’s Double: but no one until now had seen the two side by side and garbed alike. And the college roared—roared chiefly with delight at dismissal of tragedy by comedy.
The Pope and the Cardinal resumed their proper habits; and Hadrian again enthroned Himself. His aspect had become very cold, very hard. He spoke a few words in the dry incisive tone which slapped like sleet, from the far distance of His misanthropic soul snatched away to that remote place shared with wounded beasts who creep to die alone. He began swiftly; and intensified the value of His words by the gradual monotonous deceleration which marked their close. “Lord Cardinals,” He said, “know that, if We desire to intrigue, Our experience of the extreme stupidity of intriguers has taught Us to avoid their pitifully trite folly. Know also that intrigues, disguises, tricks, artifices, stratagems, and deceptions, are repugnant to Us. And finally know this, that We never will derogate Our pontifical paraphernalia or authority to another.” After a moment, He changed His manner; and in a formal tone announced that the Congress of Windsor had invited the intervention of the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Arbitrator. It was the appeal of Cæsar to Peter. He made known the contents of the dispatch,
which Sir Francis Bertram had brought; and read the names of sovereign and presidential signatories. And, without waiting for comment, He uttered the ceremonial form which closed the Consistory; and was borne away.
Acclamations followed Him. Vermilion tumbled over ermine in an effort to get at Him. What a number of things everybody urgently desired to know! What was He going to do? Would He not take this magnificent opportunity of reclaiming Peter’s Patrimony? He could not be denied it now. That was Ragna’s notion. The two Vagellaii agreed with it: Italy could be compensated by the cession of Italia Irredenta, said Serafino. Little minds expatiated on an infinity of little things. Then, some began about the calumnies. What was He going to do about them? Oh, for certain He had disproved the charge made against Hadrian the Seventh; and most likely he could disprove the others. “Could He?” Berstein cynically guffawed. Well, was He going to publish this disproval? “Who knows?” asked Fiamma. The English and American cardinals energetically asseverated that, for their part, they neither were going to consult His Holiness on the subject, nor to consider themselves bound to secrecy in regard to the refutation which they had heard and witnessed. It was Carvale who hurriedly collected and expressed the opinions of his colleagues. “What d’ye mean?” neighed the long faced Capuchin. “I’ll tell you what we mean:” said Semphill. “With the help of my friends here, we’ll have an authentic copy of the acts of this consistory sent to every newspaper on earth.” “And, you can bet, right now!” Van Kristen cried. The Cardinal-Archdeacon and nine Italians vociferated approval of the scheme. Talacryn trumpeted with the others, gambolling gaily along. Then he put down an elephantine foot—he was not quite sure that it was advisable: down at the back of his heart he felt the old distrust of Hadrian—he did not want to be involved by seeming to support—His Holiness was a most difficult man to get rid of, if one wanted to get rid of Him, whatever. But, still, the Cardinal of Caerleon trampled along with the others. Their Eminencies surged upstairs, chattering like a tygendis of magpies; and flowed along galleries, screeching like a muster of peacocks, until they reached the approach to the pontifical antechambers. The approach was closed, guarded by skewbald harlequins of Swiss with halberds. Before it stood the two gentlemen-of-the-apostolic-chamber, who formally responded to inquiry, “Our Most Holy Lord is in secret.”
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